Withering moon lit rose

Chapter 24

It's been three years since Atsushi disappeared with his mother, only Chuuya and Dazai knew the truth of what happened that day.

A week after Atsushi's disappearance Akutagawa abandoned a mission and disappeared, unable to be traced. A year later he reappeared, through some strings pulled by Dazai (ahem Ango) Akutagawa was able to work in the armed detective agency. Although he'd ended up partnered with Kyoka, who didn't exactly trust the man. He slowly began to settle into agency life.

Chuuya had given the letter Atsushi wrote to him the day before his disappearance. Chuuya always blamed himself for his subordinate vanishing on him. When Dazai had informed Chuuya of Akutagawa joining the detective agency he immediately made his way to them. When he arrived Akutagawa was frozen, fearing what his ex-mentor would do to him as he didn't give any warning prior to his disappearance. But to his shock and amazement he simply gave the man a hug, "I'm glad you're safe." Was all he said before hitting him on the head. He dragged him to the rooftop to berate him about how worried he'd been this last year. Kunikida was going to stop the Mafia executive from tearing Akutagawa to shreds but Dazai stopped him. "Leave them, you should have seen the state Chuuya's been in trying to locate him."

Although Akutagawa worked in the ADA Dazai was still quite cold to him, but did acknowledge his work every now and again. When Akutagawa had first received the letter from Atsushi he would re-read it each day. Part of him wanted to tear it to shreds, to burn it. But he could never bring himself to. He kept it in a small compartment in his room now, he checked that it was there every few weeks but hadn't read the thing in years. He didn't need to. The words were ingrained in his mind, and they weren't pretty.

Dear Ryuunosuke,
I hope this letter finds you relatively soon. I will have handed it to Nakahara as he's your superior, but as for the most important part of this letter I need you to know. I don't love you, I never have. What I said to you in that room was just myself being selfish, I needed someone to comfort me in that moment and you happened to be there. The feeling of your lips on my own felt disgusting, but I let you. After all it was of some relief to me that you thought you had a chance with me, that I was probably your first and last kiss. But you had to have known I was lying. I mean me? A person who lives in the world of light with someone who crawls through the dark. It was never gonna happen. As for what Dazai thinks of you, I agree. I mean you couldn't even work up the nerve to follow me, to make sure I was safe. But now I'm sitting here writing my final words to you, of all people. You should be grateful I'm giving you this grace, I should have written a letter for Kyoka instead. She at least didn't try to kill me on multiple occasions. But having said that, you should have tried harder to kill me, it would have saved me from having to look at your face all this time. I won't remember you, your face will fade into the background never to be remembered again. I hope you do the same, forget about me. I don't want you remembering me, especially seen as you've seen me at my best and my worst. Knowing that someone out there has seen me at both gives me chills.
Goodbye Ryuunosuke, see you never again.

The first time Ryuunosuke had read it, it had brought him to tears. Something he hadn't done in many years. He'd initially thought that someone else had written the letter, but they couldn't have. It was his handwriting. But it just didn't sound like him, when Gin had found out about the letter she had demanded him to get rid of it.

"It's ruining you more than you already are!" She used to yell at him, but it always fell on deaf ears. When he'd left Ryuunosuke hadn't spoken to Gin, she hadn't been in contact with him in the three years of his disappearance. Even when Chuuya informed her he'd located him she refused to see him. He preferred it like that, she didn't need him anyway was what he thought.

"Akutagawa?" Kyoka questioned, breaking him away from his thoughts. He was in the office, he had been writing his reports until his thoughts distracted him.

"Yes? What is it, Izumi?" He never called the younger by her name, he felt he didn't deserve to.

"There's a case we need to resolve." He nodded curtly in acknowledgment, he stood next to the girl. Well, nearly adult. In the past three years Kyoka had begun to grow into a young lady. Kouyou would be proud if Kyoka would finally agree to meet with her, Chuuya had kept badgering Akutagawa to get Kyoka to agree with the woman but Akutagawa had repeatedly stated, "She's her own person, I can't convince her to go when she doesn't want to. No one can."

"What's the mission exactly?" Akutagawa questioned as they began to leave the agency, pulling on his overcoat (Side note-Akutagawa looks like he does in beast).

"We need to intervene in a deal being made. There isn't much information on what the deal is but one of the dealers has the name Omori Hanzawa, late thirties, tousled brown hair. Roughly five foot seven." Kyoka sighed in despair.

"So your average man in Yokohama?" Akutagawa questioned, Kyoka nodded solemnly in response. She pulled on her brown coat which hung by the agency door. She no longer donned her red kimono, but a black skirt paired with a pale pink turtleneck, her brown boots clicking along the pavement as they walked.

"So I see you haven't taken the advice I gave you?" Despite the two being on frosty terms when they were first paired up, after a year of missions. Some perilous, and others just down right random. The pair developed a friendship of sorts, neither dared to bring up the topic of Atsushi.
"Which advice?" Kyoka made so many remarks so often he'd lost track of which were important and which were just to annoy him.

"The one about you finding someone?" She quirked her eyebrow upwards and tilted her head to the side, to see if he recalled.

"Oh, right... That..."